Read the article below about predicting the success of a product (Questions 21-30).
Choose the best word from below to fill each gap.
There is an example at the beginning (0).
TEXT “HOW SOON WILL YOUR PRODUCT SELL?”
Two Wharton researchers have developed a mathematical model that they say will (0) allow companies, for the first time, to predict how fast new products will gain (21) approvalacceptanceacknowledgementacquisition in markets where purchasing decisions by knowledgeable, influential customers influence the buying (22) habitsmannersroutinesways of others.
Wharton marketing professor Christophe Van den Bulte and doctoral student Yogesh V. Joshi say their model can be put to use in industries as (23) variousnumerousseveraldiverse as movies, music, pharmaceuticals and high-technology. It is possible the model may also be a way to identify directors and actors who are ready to make the (24) skipbounceleapspring from small films to the Hollywood mainstream, they add.
According to Van den Bulte, chief marketing officers do not need to be maths experts to use the model. He and Joshi have developed a handy spreadsheet that (25) involvesincorporatescoversunites a close approximation of the equations and does the (26) previewingplanningspeculatingforecasting for executives. Also, the model can easily be copied by employing SAS, a commercial software (27) packagesetcollectioncombination popular with market research analysts.
Companies wanting to understand how new products become popular are especially interested in markets that (28) formconsistcomprisecontain of two segments: “influentials” (knowledgeable people who keep abreast of product (29) changesalterationsintroductionsinnovations and readily accept them) and “imitators” (people whose purchasing decisions are swayed by their more knowledgeable counterparts). Targeting influential people who are more in (30) senseagreementtouchunison with new developments than most people and converting them into customers, the thinking goes, allows companies to benefit from a “social contagion” effect in marketing campaigns.